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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

Here's a situation that made me laugh. Not really something the student said, but was something funny.

I had a student who had to go to her basement alone and practice her piano. She told me she was scared of the basement, and wasn't practicing much because of it. I asked if she had a pet dog/cat, that she could take down to the basement with her. And she said, yes she has a dog, but when she takes the dog down and starts practicing, the dog leaves!

So I told the mom the problem with her daughters practicing!

Student comes that week to lessons, all smiles. So I ask her why the change, and she says, well, mom solved the 1problem. She ties the dog to the piano. Now the dog can't leave!

And I chuckled a lot at "I like to play the piano randomly, especially now that I know what randomly means."

Yesterday I had my first experience of "where is your off button?" from a 6 yo (who learns on a digital). Made a note for us to look inside my piano next lesson.

Also yesterday: first lesson with 7yo: looks at piano with dismay "there are no letters written on!" Me "did your keyboard come with letter names on the keys? (imagining new-fangled coloured LEDs and hi-tech teaching aids)The 7yo "No, they are written on with texta."

A bit later "Where is G?...Now I need E...Where is D-Brackets?"

That texta user was busy!

Composers manufacture a product that is universally deemed superfluous—at least until their music enters public consciousness, at which point people begin to say that they could not live without it.Alex Ross.

One of my Monday students was playing a song called "Dragon Hunter" and missed a few notes. She noticed the mistakes before I had a chance to point them out and said "It's a song about a dragon. It doesn't have to sound good!" We both had a good laugh.

5 and 3/4 year old student and I are writing rhythms with coloured pencils in our 2nd lesson together, she takes the yellow out of the box but I say "Oh not with yellow because it's hard to see". She chooses another colour and rest of lesson is great.

Ever since then whenever we do some drawing the first thing she does is take the yellow pencil and put it out of reach on a high shelf saying "not yellow!". Makes me worry that I've created a deep predjudice against yellow. Even I am feeling sorry for this pencil.

Last week I asked her to draw a picture to illustrate a piano piece that we had learnt. This week she showed me her lovely drawing - a big yellow bird, in a yellow nest, the sky was blue but there was a yellow thing that may have been a sun. Yellow has had it's revenge. I wonder what a phychologist would make of this

Composers manufacture a product that is universally deemed superfluous—at least until their music enters public consciousness, at which point people begin to say that they could not live without it.Alex Ross.

This isn't the most politically correct, but I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing at this students idea.

I had just explained that ritardando means to slow down.Student says "That's easy to remember cos it sounds like RETARDando and retards are slow"

I was more shocked than anything to hear this from a 7yo!

I've had this happen, and it's an excellent opportunity to teach the student a little English and manners. "Yes, the word retard means to slow. When a car driver sees caution signs along the road, she/he is supposed to retard their speed. That's how grown-ups use the word. But it's not very nice to call someone a retard. They may be slow at some things, but they may be very quick at other things which you are slow at. Nice people don't talk that way. Can you understand why?"

"Those who dare to teach must never cease to learn." -- Richard Henry DannFull-time Private Piano Teacher offering Piano Lessons in Olympia, WA. www.mypianoteacher.comCertified by the American College of Musicians; member NGPT, MTNA, WSMTA, OMTA

Today I had a student who was so excited about the upcoming holiday, and how she would have 2 whole weeks off of school. She wasn't sure how to express the concept of "2 weeks" and kept calling it 2 weekends. She could tell I wasn't following her train of thought, so she demonstrated it on the piano. Starting on middle C, she played up a pentachord, counting, "monday, tuesday, wednesday, etc." then moved to treble C and continued the pattern for week 2 "monday, tuesday, etc" then played chord clusters with both hands in either C position to emphasize the fact that she had 2 whole weeks off of school!

An eight year old male student is working on Christmas carols with me. He arrived at his lesson this week, very excited to play his "spooky Deck the Halls and spooky O Christmas Tree".I asked what he meant by "spooky". He sat down and played each carol in minor keys. I had not shown him how to transpose anything yet, so I thought this was not only funny but very bright, too!

I had a beginning student for a while a couple years back, and I gave her the assignment of writing the key-names above the notes. The next week, she brought in a piece of music for 'extra credit'. It was a copied sheet of 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles. She got many of the notes in the first line correct and then had written words, all sorts of words with one letter above a note all over the page. she used all the letters of the alphabet and the words didn't even make sense. I was going to laugh so hard I had to run into the bathroom to compose myself.

The thread about learning names of keys reminded me of something: I had a student once who was like Ford: He always had a better idea! Liked to make things his own. He didn't like "every good boy does fine" - so he came up with "empty garbage before dad flips." I can't remember what he used for the "great big dogs" -- I think it was "George Bush drove far away" or something like that.

Since then I've always offered to let students to create their own if they want. They have fun trying, but usually come back to the old stand-bys.

At a concert once I made a box with hole in top and invited everyone to write their best EGBDF and post it in the box for a prize. Anyway, the idea went off! But it was the parents that invented the most - they were so into it. All done in the social meeting eating and drinking part before the performances, but I could see some glazed expressions as a few more were thought of during the concert. Anyway, we got one of the parents who is a literary/writer sort of person to choose winners:- Adult winner

Exam Gone Badly; Doomed Future!

child winner:

Extremely Grand But Dumb Friends.

There were so many good ones, adults are very good at this, and just a few of the kids too. Some of course were unprintable but were whispered and chortled over.

Composers manufacture a product that is universally deemed superfluous—at least until their music enters public consciousness, at which point people begin to say that they could not live without it.Alex Ross.

O.K. people I'm cracking up laughing. Just returned from my students' Christmas recital. One student, a 9 year old boy, announced his pieces and then said, "And I want to play them both at CARNAGE HALL".

O.K. people I'm cracking up laughing. Just returned from my students' Christmas recital. One student, a 9 year old boy, announced his pieces and then said, "And I want to play them both at CARNAGE HALL".

LOL. That's where *my* stuff would be played. I'm sure your student will be much better

Another one:My 7 year old student just finished his lesson. I asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he said "lots of things". I said, "name your top thing you want." He said, "Socks, I really need them. I have only one pair and wear em every day, wanna see how dirty they are?"

I was explaining how in a phrase, you start softly, get louder, and end softly. A 10 year old student said to me "Oh, it's like putting a magnifying glass in the middle of it!". I thought this was so brilliant - I've told it to all my other students.

I'm no teacher, but I remember my own first Piano lesson nearly 12 years ago (I was 7 then). The first thing my teacher did was, he asked me where I thought the middle of the piano was. I think he wanted me to find the c' note, but I was to exact to just guess, so I counted all the keys, from bottom to top, pressing every key once, divided what I got by two and went again from the bottom to the middle counting down my result, and then, I believe I had actually gotten it right, pointed to the space between e' and f'. My teacher was amused, but didn't try to interrupt me, even though it took some time. By the way, I'm studying mathematics now, I guess I've been destined to even back then .

"Where does it plug in?" (I have an acoustic piano, many of my students dont :))

A good one though was:

"I hope you don't mind i wrote in all the notes, i was having a hard time. My mom had this chart from when she was little (a chart showing notes on the grand staff)and i used that but that was sooooooooooo long ago and i don't know if it's changed since then!" HAHAHHAHAHA!

and my FAVOURITE is the following, from a 4 year old, a week after we had a lesson studying about Beethoven:

"Hey.... you know that Beethoven guy? HE'S DEAD! (said very "as a matter of fact") And he couldn't hear nothin!!!!!"

HAHAHHAHAH

Thanks everyone else for sharing, this is a great post

Mordent Music - Offering Piano and Music Theory Lessons in Windsor, Ontario

A new 4 year old student came to lessons one day, and she was very excited to begin, but she was also very excited to show me how well she could sing and dance too. I told her we would work on piano for 15 minutes, then we could take a quick break and she could show me something else. So we did, and she sang a cute little song for me, but then wanted to show me her dance, so i said when lessons are done she can show me her dance. So finally, after being very patient and doing very well at her first lesson she gets up, very excited to show me her dance. I ask her "So what kind of dancing do you do? Tap? Ballet? Jazz?"

and she said "No, POLE DANCING!" and then smacks her behind and starts shaking her booty like a bad Britney Spears routine :S

It was very shoking but also very funny, i couldn't think of anything to say but "WOW!"

Mordent Music - Offering Piano and Music Theory Lessons in Windsor, Ontario